


You Have No Idea

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [34]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Anger, Gen, just johnny gettin mad at ponyboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 11:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15772806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Ponyboy tells Johnny he's lucky. It's the wrong thing to do.





	You Have No Idea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bdbye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bdbye/gifts).



> i got the title for this from a song that has nothing to with the subject matter of this fic, but if you're curious it's called you have no idea by ryan amon and it's from the elysium ost

The night was dark and full of stars. That was what Johnny thought as he sat out in the vacant lot alone, staring up at the sky, listening to the fire in front of him crackle as it ate up the twigs and logs he’d put on it when he’d started it. He’d come to the lot tonight because his father had given him a black eye after he’d mouthed off. He did that more often than the gang thought he did, but he always ended up getting beat for it and therefore never told them about it.

 _Because it’s your fault it happened,_ a dark voice in his head whispered. _If you’d just kept your mouth shut, then he wouldn’t’ve hit you and you wouldn’t have a black eye right now._

Johnny swallowed hard, shifting on the ripped out car seat as he continued to stare at the sky, pressing his hands deeper into his pockets in an attempt to get them warm. The voice was right. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, none of this would’ve happened. He probably still would be in the lot, staring at the stars; he preferred not to spend his nights at home. But he wouldn’t have a black eye. He might even not be shaking. Everything would be a little different if he’d just kept his mouth shut.

Tears pricked his eyes and he grimaced, digging his nails into his palms as he swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, stopping the tears before they fell, hating himself for feeling so weak. He hated this life, he hated being hurt all the time, he hated his heart hurting all the time from everything that happened to him, he hated that he couldn’t ever stop thinking about it.

He hated how unfair the world was and that there was nothing he could do to change it.

He hated how unfair it was to him in particular.

Everyone had their own problems, he knew that, but there were times, like now, where he felt like the world was picking on him in particular. Two-Bit’s dad ignored him, but he didn’t beat him, he didn’t tell him how worthless he was, how much he wished he’d never been born. Dally’s father hit him and put his cigarettes out on him, sure, but Dallas didn’t care. He’d gotten past it. It didn’t bother him. Steve’s dad was gone all the time, but he loved him. And the Curtis brothers parents may have died, but they loved each other and their parents had loved them before they’d been killed.

Johnny’s parents neither loved him nor wanted him and the worst part was he wanted them and loved them and only wanted for them to love him back. It made everything they did ten times worse. It made him feel ten times worse too.

The sound of twigs snapping somewhere off to his right made him jump and turn. A strange silhouette was making its way towards him and, for a moment, Johnny didn’t recognize it, his heart rate spiking with fear. Then the fire cast its glow on the silhouette’s face and Johnny relaxed.

It was only Ponyboy.

He closed his eyes, letting out a sigh of relief, pressing a hand to his heart as he did so. “Don’t _do_ that, man,” he said in a voice that shook more than he wanted it too. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought you were a Soc.”

Or someone worse. His father had come to find him at the lot before and drag him home when he wanted to have his way with him. He wouldn’t put it past him to do it again.

But when he opened his eyes and looked at Ponyboy again, he could tell something was wrong. He looked on the verge of tears and was pacing rapidly in front of the fire. Johnny drew his brows together, wondering what might’ve happened to make him feel this way. “Pony?” he asked, his voice soft. “You okay, man? You don’t look so good.”

Ponyboy shook his head and took a shuddering breath, pulling a cigarette out of a pack he produced from his back pocket. He lit it, using the Zippo lighter Darry had given him for Christmas and said, “It’s Darry. He’s mad about my grades. I got a D in English and a D in Social Studies.”

Johnny wasn’t sure what to say to that. All he could hear in his mind was his parents screaming at him any time he got anything less than As in every class. Which happened often. He wasn’t good at doing homework. It was hard to do homework in a house that made you stressed just to be there.

 _You’re better than this!_ His father would scream – it might’ve sounded like a nice thing to say to anyone else, but he knew it was just his father’s way of telling him he was worthless. _You know it and I know it, so why don’t your grades reflect that?_

 _Why can’t you be more like your friend Ponyboy?_ His mother would shout back – again something that might’ve sounded nice to anyone else, but was just _her_ way of telling him he wasn’t good enough. _He always gets good grades! Why can’t you be like him?_

“You’re lucky, man,” Ponyboy said, startling Johnny out of his thoughts and Johnny watched Ponyboy stick a hand in his pocket and blow smoke at the sky. “Your folks don’t care about what you do, so they don’t yell at you about this stuff.”

Without warning, Johnny felt an anger he hadn’t even known he could feel towards Ponyboy rise in him and he stood, his hands clenching into fists as he shouted, “Are you kiddin’ me? You gotta be kiddin’, right? Please tell me you’re kiddin’.”

Ponyboy blinked, looking at him bemused. “What?” he asked.

And that was when Johnny lost it.

He laughed. He couldn’t help himself. How could Ponyboy be serious? Did he even realize what he was saying right now? Did he? At all? And all of his bitter feelings he’d had before Ponyboy appeared welled up inside him and came spilling out in angry words.

“You really think I’m lucky?” he asked, practically spitting out the words like they were caustic things that were rotting inside him. “You really think I’m lucky to have an old man that beats me when I don’t get good grades? Do you have _any_ idea what he did to me when he found out I had to repeat a year of school? Do you know what they say to me? They wish I were more like _you_! That I got the kinda grades that _you_ get! They know I fail almost every class cause I can’t even do homework in that house! You don’t get belted by Darry if you get bad grades! You get yelled at and why? Cause he cares, Ponyboy! Cause he _wants_ you to do better! My folks don’t care if I do better! They just care about how it makes ‘em look to the rest of the world! I’m lucky? Really? _You’re_ the lucky one!”

He turned on his heel and walked away from the fire, heading towards the woods, heading for his treehouse. He heard Ponyboy calling after him, but he didn’t want to talk to him right now. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He was sure he’d snap at anyone else who tried.

 _Maybe you_ are _lucky,_ the same dark voice whispered in his mind. _Maybe it_ is _harder to be yelled at by someone that cares about you than by someone you know doesn’t. How would you know? You’ve never experienced that._

Johnny was halfway into woods by now, far enough away from anyone that he couldn’t hear the cars on the freeway near the train yard. He fell to his knees and screamed, screamed until his voice went hoarse and all that came out was a strangled shriek. He pressed his forehead to the ground, feeling the dirt dig into his skin as he cried.

It wasn’t fair.

None of this was fair.

And he _wasn’t_ lucky. No matter what the voice said, he knew that.

He would give his legs to have what Ponyboy had.

**Author's Note:**

> i got this as a request from a friend who (i agree with) thinks that ponyboy complains sometimes about things he shouldn't and says things he shouldn't. 
> 
> also tell me if you notice the foreshadowing in this ;)
> 
> and before any of y'all say this ain't somethin johnny would do lemme tell you somethin: everyone has their limit. 
> 
> people haven't been commentin on my stuff as much lately and it's rly bummin me out so pls comment if you read!!


End file.
